THE IMPERFECT CHILD.

“Words are the most powerful thing in the universe….Words are containers. They contain faith or fear, and they produce after their kind” ~ Charles Capps

Mental sickness is an ageless vice and it affects all age groups right from children in lower school to those nearing their rests. It comes in all forms, depression, anxiety, inadequacy, fear, torture and even madness among others.

The worst form of mental torture is that experienced by children at a younger age. Be it innocent comments by their peers or intended spears inform of words by adults too. I guess this can be termed as bullying.

This is a brief piece of my mind on how a child is affected by mere words they’re exposed to in their early years of school and life generally and what our roles are as those responsible for their wellbeing. Personally I have been bullied my whole life and with this little experience, I am certain that whatever I say can make sense to anyone to ever have a glance at this piece.

Words can set up a child for the life ahead in various ways. For my case;

It’s as simple as being fat shamed in a primary one classroom by your peers innocently to being given nicknames in secondary school and facing rejections because of your body later on in college.

Growing up, I was rather unfortunate to be that ‘fat kid’ from day one and 20 plus years later, I still can’t confirm to you that I have moved from the words I heard from my peers and surprisingly some adults too. Because, after all these years, I still fight against low self-esteem, a feeling of inadequacy and literally zero confidence.

Those supposedly innocent words made me feel like I was not worthy of a normal life. Like I was born and given a guide to a perfect life but I ignored it and turned out the way I am.

Let me start with my early primary days. Our home was my solace, the only place I ever felt loved and wanted. Each and every day out of home was like a battlefield. It wasn’t a matter of who will say hurtful words to me today, but rather how many will. I had to ride to school early morning at 6am mainly to report on time but also to some extent to avoid meeting my ‘tormentors’ who I was very much guaranteed to encounter in evenings on my way back. This were actually a bunch of innocent local children who felt it was fun to call me fat names whenever they saw me. For a fact, I still hate them till present despite the fact that they all matured. This is because I can still hear their voices in my head. They tortured me mentally. That’s something you can’t let go of easily.

At school, my classmates seemed to be used to me but that did not sojourn them from dishing out painful lines if I mistakenly crossed their path once in a while. Going out at breaks and lunch was always a battle of thoughts and actions. It zeroed down to “Where should I pass?” “What if I meet people on my way?” What will they think or say”, even if they don’t speak up. It was like I was obliged to put words into people’s mouths every moment I felt anyone looking at me. I literally helped them judge me even if they weren’t. This made me never maintain eye contact at any one point. I still battle with this up to now. I am forced to greet someone first and always be that jolly creature in a room in the name of creating a first time impression such that I don’t give one time to judge me first.

A day in my primary school life was literally a clandestine of who will dash out a hurtful comment today. How was I ever supposed to feel perfect in such an environment? A surrounding where everyone was a potential enemy. Not even the blind could be trusted. All these were because of people’s words. The words that hurt my mind and heart. The words that literally made me feel like no one cared.

Well, as I said, home was always a safe space but I later realized that it also depended on the mood of the people. A mistake could earn you words you didn’t sign up for. I still recall hearing agonizing words from my own dad. It was one mild weathered Sunday and I had woken up sickly and missed church that morning, when he was informed of this, I heard him say, “at least he will lose weight!” This forever made me feel like I was a burden to him. Going forward, I was forced to not disclose some inconveniences unless it was getting out of hand. I still hear echoes of words some of aunties told me back then but I rather not disclose them. It is rather sad that I can’t forget these even if I try very hard to. But again, home still remained my solace. I recall one time I told my mum of the many children who called me fat names on my way to and from school. She told me that I shouldn’t mind them because I had what they didn’t have, BRAINS. My school performance was always top notch because it was the only way I could fight off the bullies. It took audacity for a classmate to fat shame me because I was always leading them in class. Actually I got to realize that this was the sole reason as to why they weren’t that harsh to me. And when one of them ever came at me, I would simply convince myself that they were just jealous. Well that was one enemy less.

All this experience did instill in me a number of life changing mindsets one of them being trust issues. This got to a point where I don’t trust even the closest of persons to me. It made me learn that friendship is temporary and people only tolerate you for a short while. As long as you don’t get on their nerves, you are cool. Even those that love you only do it partially for it takes just a meek misunderstanding for them to pour out all your insecurities. I learnt that no one will ever look at me as perfect. Even those that pretend to, get tired one day.

With all those words and the aftermath mindset, the fear of not being accepted for who you are will never leave you. Even if you try to better yourself and take risks, those words will re-echo to you, fresh as new paint. You will always feel like you don’t deserve good things simply because you’re not perfect. Because some low level people told you so long ago.

Talk of perception. One of my worst fears in life is walking into a room and meeting a person is already biased towards fat people. It looks like a joke but I can assure you, there are many people out there who claim to naturally hate fat people. Perhaps it is from their past traumas or future whatever, I can’t tell. I have faced a lot of them right from teachers in a classroom to bosses in offices. Every day I wake up, I pray and hope that I do not encounter such a person. Out there, I have to carry a false personality to create a better first time impression. It is like I am apologizing for being me with the hope of ‘Perhaps I could change their minds?’ Like why? I did not offend you sir!

Well my adaptation and response to this childhood trauma is only effective at a later stage in life when you acknowledge and have to accept your insecurities and fight them. Unfortunately, a primary one child cannot do this just yet and thus it is more of our responsibilities to look out for them.

So as a parent, elder sibling, friend or guardian to an innocent child, that child that sees the whole world as his/her home. One that sees everyone as a friend. How do you protect this child from all these bullies? Considering that this is a very delicate generation. The truth is that I probably wished a few people death back then because of what they said to me but never did I at any one moment thought to myself, “Aah! Fuck it, I can’t take this anymore. I’m taking my own life!” no, I didn’t. But these days, kids are way more very suicidal and are very much capable of saying, ‘I’m out!’

A child will say ‘I’m out’ if he ever felt the slightest sense of resent from his/her own parent or those he considers ‘close’ even a best friend.

One fact is that we cannot control what happens to our children once we drop them off at school or when we are away at work. The people they meet; teachers, elders, fellows? All these people are capable of harming our children, sometimes innocent or under the influence of their own imperfections. But the one thing we can control is what we tell them when they are around us. It is very much possible to have a frustrating day at work or class but then it is uncouth to transfer your frustrations to an innocent child be it by scolding them or simply shouting at them. Remember that words from a close person is sharper than a stab from a stranger.

Your child maybe not be comfortable or doesn’t feel safe opening up to you. It doesn’t mean he/she is fine or resents you. It rather signifies that you haven’t earned that safe space right just yet. When I was growing up, it was more of fearing our parents leave alone respecting them. That’s one thing that has changed over time and we can use that to our advantage. Parents are now closer to their children and have a better shot at showing better affection to them. We all know very well that no one signs up for an overweight child in this family thing but nature takes it course and if blame has to be thrown around, then it is actually on a parent to some extent but I’m not here to do that and neither am I saying that I was not loved growing up but rather maybe my safe space wasn’t that safe enough with the way I turned out. Maybe I could’ve turned out more confident with better self-esteem and all that if I had a bunch of constant “I LOVE YOUs” by my side always.

This piece may have very focused on the weight issue but children out there fight with a lot of insecurities ranging from looks, slow learning, family issues and even scars among others. You, as his/her guardian may not even be aware of these. All these call for a similar course of action. I.e. us doing our part in their lives. Remind your children constantly that they’re perfect in yours eyes and they will learn to adapt to the outside world better. It will develop a shield of love that will allow them ignore all the hurtful words thrown at them instead of taking it to heart. I love to call that ‘life jujitsu.’

Maybe next time I will carry on about my adolescent experience as an imperfect teenager, because it gets much worse I can guarantee you.

Would you still come back for more of this?

• YES
• NO
• NOT SURE